


The Lockbox

by fictive_frolic



Series: Thor One Shots [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self Harm, conversion therapy, intense angst, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21522970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictive_frolic/pseuds/fictive_frolic
Summary: Thor does some digging into your past when he has concerns about the state of your heart.
Relationships: Thor (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Thor One Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551238
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	The Lockbox

It’s the quiet moments that seem too loud. The spaces when you have time to think. When you can do more than plow through a list of tasks. When night falls and forces you to breathe. In the quiet of your room, Thor’s bulk beside you, you’re still awake long after he’s drifted off. 

You slip out of bed. Stealing away to your study. To where you can spend hours staring blankly out the window, wallowing in the past that threatens to eat you alive. You don’t know what to do anymore. There is no way out. It doesn’t matter how hard you try every day. How many times you shout down your brain. You’re being buried alive. 

The depression that sinks in when the sun goes down is like a thick fur coat. It’s made of dead things but it keeps you warm. It’s a familiar companion. Even if you’d give anything to have a normal day, you aren’t sure what you would do without it. And it never stops. 

if Thor notices, he’s never said. He doesn’t seem to notice when your sex drive plummets to nothing. He doesn’t seem to notice when you spend hours staring blankly at the bedroom wall, just trying to figure out how to get up and move. He’s busy. Running a kingdom. Rebuilding what had been broken after rebuilding himself. You can’t bring yourself to draw attention to your struggle. it’s not fair to expect him to help you when he has to work so hard to help himself. So you work. Hard. Head down. Helpful people don’t attract attention. Helpful people can wallow in bed all day to try and get the energy just to put on their shoes. 

The worst part is feeling numb. Feeling ugly. Feeling like a burden no matter how hard you try. You’ve always felt that way. As long as you can remember. Tonight, as you stare at the moon and pray to any god who might be listening that you can just go to sleep. That when you do go to sleep you just don’t wake up because you’re too much of a coward to do it yourself. It’s the worst. It’s always bad after you pretend to be interested in sex for Thor’s sake. He’s a good lover. The best. But even with his skills and his best effort, you’d had to fake the orgasm that had let him come. You feel like garbage. He loved you so much and you couldn’t even do this one thing. At least not with any regularity. You wipe away frustrated tears and rest your forehead on the cold glass of the window. “I can’t do this anymore,” you whisper, “ please don’t make me do this anymore.” You take a deep, shaky breath and lift your head up slowly. The sick parts of your brain are screaming. Reminding you that there are about 18 different ways you can end it all, just now. In the room you’re in. Quietly before anyone could wake up and stop you. There are weapons all over the house. Knives. Guns. Poisons. Hell, there’s a stapler and some books with sharp edges. 

You need to move. You need to go. You need to get out of the house. If you don’t, you know you won’t be able to hold it together. You know exactly how much damage you can do to yourself with a simple pocket knife. In 6 minutes. It’s calculated to cause the most pain and attract the least attention. You don’t care that there’s no where for you to go and no one to talk to. You can keep yourself company. You just need to go.

______

Thor rolls over and reaches for you, jerking awake when he finds your side of the bed cold. Ice cold, as if you’d not been there in quite a while. He frowns. You always sleep well after he loves you. He sits up slowly and swings his legs over the bed, absently rubbing his stomach. He wonders if you were hungry. You hadn’t eaten hardly anything at dinner. You’d cooked and sat with him while he ate, absently pushing food around on your plate until you excused yourself to do dishes. Either you didn’t eat or that’s all you did. 

The Asgardian moved as quietly as he could, not wanting to scare you. You were sitting in a kitchen chair, a pocket knife from the junk drawer in your hand. Your hand is wrapped around the knife in a white-knuckled grip. Held so tightly that you’re trembling. A muscle in your jaw is twitching and for a moment, he’s afraid. He’s never seen you hold yourself that rigidly. He can hear the grinding in your teeth. He takes an involuntary half a step forward. He wants to rip that pocket knife out of your hand. He wants to whisk you back upstairs and tuck you back into bed. But he doesn’t get the chance.

You hurl the knife away from you with a soft cry and burst into tears. Helpless, heartbroken sobs, biting into your sleeve to muffle the sound. Thor is too startled for a moment. He can’t move and even if he feels like he’s spying. Feels like he’s watching something he shouldn’t, he can’t look away. He can’t reconcile what he’s seeing now with the big bright smile you’d greeted him with when he’d come home for dinner. With the soft kisses and murmurs of his name in the dark of the bedroom. It hurts. 

It hurts to watch you be torn apart from the inside out. By all the things you never tell him about. The secrets you keep. The white lies you tell him to keep him from pressing. He feels like he doesn’t know you. He watches, frozen in the shadows. When he steps backwards and a floorboard creaks, you freeze, your head snapping up. A deer caught in the headlights. 

You stand up so fast the chair crashes to the floor. Thor knows you’re about to bolt. You always run. In another life he’d have said it was cowardice but knowing you. Knowing what had lead you here, he knew that for most of your life. In a world of people who sought to hurt you, your best defense was a good pair of running shoes. “What’s wrong, my love?” he asked softly, stepping into the hazy yellow light cast by the light above the sink. He watches your face as you wrestle a lid back onto whatever Pandora’s box had been opened. You look away to wipe your nose on your sleeve and by the time you look up, any disturbance is gone. Your eyes are still red but you smile for him, “Was I being too loud? I’m sorry.” With a jolt, Thor remembers all the mornings he woke up to a nice breakfast. Your eyes still red, sounding like you have a cold. All the times you had reasons for him not to worry. If he noticed at all through the haze of a hang over. 

Sober. Alert. He doesn’t miss that you don’t answer his question. “Sweetheart,” he pressed gently, “What happened? Is someone hurt?” You laugh softly and shake your head, turning to the sink and turning on the water. “I’m fine, I just couldn’t sleep. It’s frustrating sometimes when you can’t.” An answer that isn’t an answer. Pieces that look like they fit. But don’t when you peer closer. “Why can’t you sleep?” he asked, stepping closer, “You always sleep well after we’ve made love.” he kisses the side of your neck. The spot that should make you shiver. But right now, it just irritates you. You don’t want to be touched. You feel prickly and dirty and angry with yourself. “I just can’t,” you answer, trying not to sound short. Thor frowned and gently let you go, “Alright,” he said gently. 

He can feel the prickly energy. The Anxiety. The fear. The disappointment. It hurts that you won’t talk to him. That you turn your attention to getting him a cup of tea and a snack. Bustling around taking care of him even as your hands are still trembling and your mind is still light-years away. He sits and lets you fuss, not knowing what else to do. He takes the tea. His snack. And the other things you offer with quiet thanks as he watches the sun start to break over the horizon. You take your own tea to the porch. Leaning against the post, the cup cradled in your hands like a lifeline. 

He watches you close your eyes and lean your head back. He thinks about how many mornings he watched you do this exact thing. He’d always thought you were soaking in those first rays. Greeting the day with your own quiet reflections. Now he isn’t sure. It looks like a prayer. The tension in your jaw. The way you’re gripping the mug. He wants to follow you. To kiss your tear-stained cheeks and put you back in bed. Surround you in softness and comfort. But when you come back inside and answer your phone, it dawns on him.

While he wallowed in his grief, you’d become his queen. He’d adored you. The small joy you could bring to the crushing reality of his loss. He’d married you. Let you love him. Let you soothe his pain. He’d been so deep in his own despair that he hadn’t seen the things you hid from him. The pain. You pushed the feelings away. You refused to feel them. Until the world was asleep. Until there was no more to keep you busy. 

“Sweetheart,” he said, catching your hand, “Spend the day with me?” he asked. You kiss his forehead, “I spend the day with you every day,” you answer, smiling. He caresses the inside of your wrist gently, “No not… Not working. Just. Just you and me.” He kisses your palm gently. He wants you to melt. He wants you to feel something. But he feels nothing. No desire from you. There’s nothing. Where he should be able to read you, there’s nothing. A Vacuum. It scares him. The void in your chest that you kept hidden from him for so long. 

You sigh, “Thor… I can’t. I’m sorry. I’ve got meetings. Trying to help your craftspeople figure out Etsy and stuff. They’ve been trying to pin me down for a week and stuff keeps happening. Boats needing repairs and then trade embargos. Then we had the UN coming to visit…” You trail off and swallow hard, “I’m sorry.” Thor chucks you under the chin and smiles a little, “Love, they can wait. You need rest. You haven’t slept well.” You shake your head, “I’ve got to get this done. It won’t take long. I just. I can’t keep canceling on them. It isn’t fair.” He nods and lets you go when you pull away. 

The god isn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t… You hadn’t rebuffed him. Not exactly. You had a good reason to turn him down. You’d had other plans. Plans to benefit New Asgard. A promise you had made. He listens to your feet on the stairs, the ache in his chest squeezes and he stares at the ceiling for a second. You’d been such an angel when he was ill. After Thanos. After the Second Snap. You’d been there. Unquestioningly. He felt like a prick. The veil had been torn away and all the things you hid behind to keep him safe. To keep yourself functioning all this time. He sighed, pulling himself to his feet. 

Once he was upstairs, he paused near the bedroom door. He can hear the sounds of you putting yourself together. The rustle of fabric and the light tread of your steps. He wants to go into the bedroom. He wants to tell you that he loves you but the words stick in his throat. He’s afraid that if he presses he’ll hurt you. He’ll make you break if he pushes the fragile walls you put up. You keep your demons quiet by pretending they don’t exist. You ignore them and pour all your frustrations and hurts into taking care of anything else. He wishes he knew what to say. That he had paid more attention all the times that you had slipped out of bed. Instead, he doesn’t push into the bedroom, he slips into your study. It’s a pretty little room in the daylight. Warm wood shelves and the smell of paper and ink. 

He set this room aside for you in the early days of your marriage. To give you a space to work or just. Be. A place that is just yours. He felt like that was important. Even now, he feels a little like he’s intruding. He hates what he’s about to do as he hears you leave. He just. He needs to know. For all the things he knows about you, why did he never notice how hurt you were? 

He knows there is a box. 

A locked box where you keep your secrets. 

It came to New Asgard with you. It had been tucked into the bottom of your bag. Buried under your other meager possessions. A grey box with a lock. When he asked about it, you’d simply said it had your documentation in it. That sometimes you kept large bills in it when you were traveling. Before, when he was struggling just to stay alive, he’d never questioned it. But. Now? Even if he respected you. Even though he loved you. If there was something in that grey box that could help him, he was going to open it. 

Thor knew where you kept it. In the bottom desk drawer. Hidden under a stack of folders. He sat carefully in your desk chair and opened the drawer. It didn’t feel good. He felt cold in the pit of his stomach. You’d never told him he couldn’t look. He’d just… He’d felt it was important to grant you your privacy. You had told him enough. He loved you as you were now. But who you were now was hurt. His love was hurt and he didn’t know what to do. Not the way she had knows what to do for him.

As he pulled the box out of the bottom drawer and placed it on the desk, he took a deep breath and whispered a prayer that you’d forgive him for what he was about to do. The hinges creaked open and inside, Thor indeed found secrets. 

Letters and pictures. A “Graduation” certificate for a program that endorsed having gotten rid of your “Homosexual Urges”. A bible that’s highlighted and written in. Photos of you. With family. With friends. Photos of you from “Camp” Your head had been shaved and there was a wicked-looking cut under your eye. It makes his chest hurt. He blinks back tears slowly and opens the first letter. It’s dated the earliest.

Y/N, it read, I miss you so much. School isn’t the same without you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I didn’t listen. That I introduced myself to your parents. I didn’t believe they’d react that way. I thought you just… needed a push. I miss you. I’ll be waiting on you when you get home.

He folded the letter quietly and took a deep breath. You’d been young, he guessed. Really young. He wanted to find you and hug you. Tell you that he loved you. You’d been honest with him about your bisexuality. That you also liked women. He hadn’t minded. He’d simply blinked at you and nodded. It had never been brought up again, even if he had seen you notice a pretty girl every once in a while. That, strangely, even with his insecurities about himself had never really bothered him. You’d never acted on it. You just had an eye for a girl with pretty tattoos and a big smile. 

There were more letters. 

Dozens. 

A conversation between you and the girl. Gia. He tries not to read the private details. The longing to be with someone you loved. It breaks his heart, reading between the lines. The things you couldn’t say when someone was reading your letters. The things you had to say to her in return to avoid the abuse. 

The last letter. The one that you’d read the most. The one that was faded and creased from folding and unfolding. Was from your parents.

Dearest Daughter,

While we love you, we cannot allow you to return home. We’re so proud of your graduation from The Lighthouse Program, we can’t risk you teaching your wicked ways to your siblings.

We hope that this will show God that you’re still a good girl. We’ll see you again in heaven, hopefully.

Your Mother and Father

P.S. Inside we included $50 to help you get started on your own.

Thor stared at that letter a long time. Tears flowing down his cheeks slowly. He can’t imagine writing these words to a child. To any child. Let alone one that he had raised. He doesn’t understand. It hurts and he can only imagine what it felt like for you. Knowing that there was no going back. That your flesh and blood hadn’t loved you enough to bring you home. 

“Thor?” you soft voice startles him and he bolts to his feet, spilling the contents of the box across the floor. Letters and photos like a toxic river. You look from the floor to your husband. “What are you doing?” you ask softly, backing out of the doorway when he moves closer to you. Thor stops. 

He realizes you’re anticipating violence. That at some point, someone had taught you to fear confrontation. Taught you to run instead of face it. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks softly. The weight of the things he knows, pulls him to his knees and he hangs his head slowly. You keep your distance. Anxiety rooting you to the spot. “I’m not… I don’t. I’m fine.” you tell him, looking away. There is no emotion on your face. None. You betray nothing. “Sweetheart,” he says quietly, “Please. I just. I just want to help. I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner. That I didn’t hear you crying. That I didn’t see you were hurting. That I just let you take care of me and never… looked.” He holds out his hands for you to take and you take a hesitant step forward. “What they did to you,” he says softly, “casting you out like that… That’s not your fault. There’s nothing wrong with you.” 

He folds you gently into his arms and settles you on his lap, “I love you,” he soothes softly, “I still love you. Every day.” You bury your face in his chest and he gets quiet. He knows you have things to say. Things to tell him about that will hurt. He rocks you gently and holds you as tightly as he comfortably can.

“I’m not proud of anything I did after I got that letter,” you say softly. “I… spent a long time punishing myself. Drugs. Suicide attempts. In and out of rehab and hospitals.” Thor kissed your head and stayed quiet. Even though he wanted to kiss you quiet and pull the lid back over all of this. “When I got out the last time I didn’t know what else to do. So I worked in a bar for a while. Got a plane ticket. and left… I thought maybe if I went somewhere else. Put enough distance between me and everything else, it would go away. I’d be okay.” You wipe away tears and take a deep breath, “I was wrong. I still want to die.”

Thor cringed and buried his face in your hair, “I’m glad you’re alive,” he said softly. “I know,” you whisper. “Last night,” he starts, hesitating. “Last night, you were going to hurt yourself weren’t you?” You shake your head, “I was trying not to. I knew that if I started I wouldn’t stop.” Thor tilts your chin up, kissing you softly, “Thank you,” he said softly, “For trying so hard to stay with me.” You make a soft miserable sound and he kisses you again, “My darling girl,” he soothed “I’m so proud of you. Fighting so hard to find reasons to keep going.” He doesn’t know what else to do but hold on to you and try to shout down all the things that are telling you you shouldn’t be alive. “Thor?” you ask softly.

“Yes, my queen?” he answers. “I’m sorry,” you tell him, “I’m trying not to be crazy.” Thor chuckles softly and cups your cheek in his hand, “You’re the least crazy person I know,” he tells you. “You’re lots of things. Kind. Brave. Smart. Funny… you’re not crazy. This didn’t all come out of nowhere. This came from you treating a broken heart the only way you knew how.” He rests his forehead against yours gently. “I’m sorry that you had to try and fix me and yourself,” he said softly, “That I didn’t see how much you were hurting too.”

You take a shaky breath and close your eyes, “I love you,” you tell him. He smiles a little and kisses your nose, “Do you love me enough to talk to someone?”

He waits, patiently. He knows it isn’t really a question of you loving him that much but of loving yourself that much. “I think so,” you say softly. You look up at him and smile a little, “You already ripped off the worst bandaid to rip off.” Thor chuckled and kissed you softly, “I think this calls for ice cream, hm?” he teases. You nod and pat his belly fondly, “I think so, babe.”


End file.
